Breast cancer rates dropped by half in tandem with the discontinuation of hormone replacement therapy, according to a study published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study was reported in the Telegraph in the United Kingdom.
The Telegraph said:
"Dr Prithwish De, of the Canadian Cancer Society, and colleagues, found that use of HRT dropped from 12.7 per cent in 2002 to 4.9 per cent in 2004.
During the same period breast cancer rates dropped by 9.6 per cent even though the same number of women were having mammography tests.
Between 2004 and 2006 use of HRT remained stable at around five per cent of women aged 50 to 59 but breast cancer rates began to increase again.
Dr De wrote: 'The results support the hypothesised link between the use of hormone replacement therapy and invasive breast cancer incidence and indicate that the sharp decline in breast cancer incidence in 2002 is likely explained by the concurrent decline in the use of hormone replacement therapy among Canadian women.'"
The study's authors said these numbers support existing evidence of the link between HRT and breast cancer.
from Articles : Hormones, Aging https://ift.tt/13bQkWb
via IFTTT
It is amazing how the little twists and turns of researchers can have such a profound impact on what we generally come to realize as “scientific truth.” Let me share a recent fascinating example of how this impacted one of the most powerful hormones in your body.
The Ob mouse is a strain of mouse that has a genetic mutation that makes it obese and unhealthy. It has been used for many years as a model of obesity to do research on, though the reason that it was obese had eluded scientists.
This changed when, in 1994, Jeffrey Friedman discovered that this mouse lacked a previously unknown hormone called leptin, and when it was injected with leptin it became thin, vibrant, and very healthy within weeks. This made headlines around the world, "the cure for obesity found" and pharmaceutical companies started tripping over themselves with trillion dollar signs in their eyes to be the first to genetically manufacture leptin on a large-scale.
This did not last long. When people were tested for leptin, it was found that, unlike the Ob mouse, they did not lack leptin; on the contrary almost all overweight and obese people have excess leptin.
These people were "leptin resistant" and giving extra leptin did little good.
The financial disappointment was extreme and scientists working for pharmaceutical companies said that leptin wasn't important anymore since they could not find a drug to control it, and therefore the industry couldn't make money on it. To make big money in medicine one needs a patent and this generally means remedies which are not commonly or easily available -- that are not natural.
This illustrates two extremely unfortunate principles in modern medicine; only those therapies that will make lots of money (generally for the pharmaceutical industry or hospitals), ever get pursued and then taught to physicians (since most of medical education after medical school takes place by drug reps), and these therapies, almost by definition, will be unnatural.
This inhibition of extremely important knowledge is not only unfortunate, it is deadly, and is exemplified by how few people, including doctors, know anything about leptin, though I would consider it to be the most important chemical in your body that will determine your health and lifespan.
Two Hormones that are Vital for Optimal Health
Each and every one of us is a combination of lives within lives. We are made up of trillions of individual living cells that each must maintain itself. Even more significantly, the cells must communicate and interact with each other to form a republic of cells that we call our individual self.
Our health and life depends on how accurately instructions are conveyed to our cells so that they can act in harmony. It is the communication among the individual cells that will determine our health and our life.
The communication takes place by hormones. Arguably therefore, the most important molecules in your body that ultimately will decide your health and life are hormones.
Many would say that genes and chromosomes are the most important molecules, however once born your genes pretty much just sit there; hormones tell them what to do. Certainly, the most important message that our cells receive is how and what to do with energy, and therefore life cannot take place without that.
The two most important hormones that deliver messages about energy and metabolism are insulin and leptin.
Metabolism can roughly be defined as the chemistry that turns food into life, and therefore insulin and leptin are critical to health and disease. Both insulin and leptin work together to control the quality of your metabolism (and, to a significant extent, the rate of metabolism).
Insulin works mostly at the individual cell level, telling the vast majority of cells whether to burn or store fat or sugar and whether to utilize that energy for maintenance and repair or reproduction. This is extremely important as we shall see, for on an individual cell level turning on maintenance and repair equates to increased longevity, and turning up cellular reproduction can increase your risk of cancer.
Leptin, on the other hand, controls the energy storage and utilization of the entire republic of cells allowing the body to communicate with the brain about how much energy (fat) the republic has stored, and whether it needs more, or should burn some off, and whether it is an advantageous time nutritionally-speaking for the republic --you-- to reproduce or not.
What Exactly is Leptin?
Leptin is a very powerful and influential hormone produced by fat cells that has totally changed the way that science (real science, outside of medicine) looks at fat, nutrition, and metabolism in general.
Prior to leptin's discovery, fat was viewed as strictly an ugly energy storage depot that most everyone was trying to get rid of. After it was discovered that fat produced the hormone leptin (and subsequently it was discovered that fat produced other very significant hormones), fat became an endocrine organ like the ovaries, pancreas and pituitary, influencing the rest of the body and, in particular, the brain.
Leptin, as far as science currently knows, is the most powerful regulator that tells your brain what to do about life's two main biological goals: eating and reproduction. Your fat, by way of leptin, tells your brain whether you should be hungry, eat and make more fat, whether you should reproduce and make babies, or (partly by controlling insulin) whether to "hunker down" and work overtime to maintain and repair yourself.
I believe I could now make a very convincing and scientifically accurate statement that that rather than your brain being in control of the rest of your body, your brain is, in fact, subservient to your fat -- and leptin.
In short, leptin is the way that your fat stores speak to your brain to let your brain know how much energy is available and, very importantly, what to do with it. Therefore, leptin may be "on top of the food chain" in metabolic importance and relevance to disease.
How Leptin Regulates Your Weight
It has been known for many years that fat stores are highly regulated. It appeared that when one tried to lose weight the body would try to gain it back. This commonly results in "yo-yo" dieting and in scientific circles one talks about the "set point" of weight. It has long been theorized that there must be a hormone that determines this.
Science points now to leptin as being that hormone.
In our ancestral history, it was advantageous to store some fat to call upon during times of famine. However, it was equally disadvantageous to be too fat. For most of our evolutionary history, it was necessary to run, to obtain prey and perhaps most importantly, to avoid being prey. If a lion was chasing a group of people it would most likely catch and eliminate from the gene pool the slowest runner and the one who could not make it up the tree -- the fattest one.
Thus, fat storage had to be highly regulated and this is done, as is any regulation, through hormones, the most significant being leptin.
If a person is getting too fat, the extra fat produces more leptin which is supposed to tell the brain that there is too much fat stored, more should not be stored, and the excess should be burned.
Signals are therefore sent to an area of the brain in the hypothalamus (the arcuate nucleus) to stop being hungry, to stop eating, to stop storing fat and to start burning some extra fat off.
Controlling hunger is a major (though not the only) way that leptin controls energy storage. Hunger is a very powerful, ancient, and deep-seated drive that, if stimulated long enough, will make you eat and store more energy. Asking somebody to not eat, to voluntarily restrict calories even though they are hungry, is asking the near impossible. The only way to eat less in the long-term is to not be hungry, and the only way to do this is to control the hormones that regulate hunger, the primary one being leptin.
How Leptin Resistance Leads to Disease
More recently, it has been found that leptin not only changes brain chemistry, but can also "rewire" the very important areas of the brain that control hunger and metabolism. I'm not aware of any other chemical in the body that has been shown to accomplish this "mind bending" event.
This has really caught the attention of the scientific community. Further studies have now shown that leptin, or more correctly the inability of the body to properly hear leptin’s signals, in other words leptin resistance, plays significant if not primary roles in heart disease, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases, reproductive disorders, and perhaps the rate of aging itself.
It helps to control the brain areas that regulate thyroid levels and the sympathetic nervous system which also has huge impacts on blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and aging. Leptin's stimulatory effect on the sympathetic nervous system also helps determine the adrenal stress response including cortisol levels.
Leptin May Be Even More Critical Than Insulin
The importance of insulin in health and disease is becoming well-known. Aside from its obvious role in diabetes, it plays a very significant role in hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
I was one of the first to speak publicly to doctors about insulin’s critical role in health well over a decade ago (see the transcribed talk Insulin and its Metabolic Effects) and I am even more convinced now.
However leptin may even supersede insulin in importance, for new research is revealing that in the long run glucose and therefore insulin levels may be largely determined by leptin.
It had been previously believed that the insulin sensitivity of muscle and fat tissues were the most important factor in determining whether one would become diabetic or not. Elegant new studies are showing that the brain and liver are most important in regulating a person’s blood sugar levels especially in type 2 or insulin resistant diabetes.
It should be noted again that leptin plays a vital role in regulating your brain’s hypothalamic activity which in turn regulates much of a person’s "autonomic" functions; those functions that you don't necessarily think about but which determines much of your life (and health) such as body temperature, heart rate, hunger, the stress response, fat burning or storage, reproductive behavior, and newly discovered roles in bone growth and blood sugar levels.
Another very recent study reveals leptin's importance in directly regulating how much sugar that the liver manufactures via gluconeogenesis.
Many chronic diseases are now linked to excess inflammation such as heart disease and diabetes. High leptin levels are very pro-inflammatory, and leptin also helps to mediate the manufacture of other very potent inflammatory chemicals from fat cells that also play a significant role in the progression of heart disease and diabetes. It has long been known that obesity greatly increased risk for many chronic diseases including heart disease and diabetes, but no one really knew why.
Leptin appears to be the missing link.
Could Leptin Also Affect How Fast You Age?
Leptin will not only determine how much fat you have, but also where that fat is put. When you are leptin resistant you put that fat mostly in your belly, your viscera, causing the so-called "apple shape" that is linked to much disease. Some of that fat permeates the liver, impeding the liver's ability to listen to insulin, and further hastening diabetes.
Leptin plays a far more important role in your health than, for instance, cholesterol, yet how many doctors measure leptin levels in their patients, know their own level, even know that it can be easily measured, or even what it would mean?
Leptin appears to play a significant role in obesity, heart disease, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases and cancer. These are the so-called "chronic diseases of aging".
Could it perhaps affect the rate of aging itself?
The Biology of Aging
Scientists who study the biology of aging are beginning to look at that question. There are two endeavors, two drives that life has been programmed, since its inception, to succeed at and to succumb to. These are to eat and to reproduce.
If every one of our ancestors had not succeeded in eating and reproducing we would not be here, and this paper would be moot. All of your morphological characteristics from your hair to your toenails are designed to help you succeed at those two activities. That is what nature wants us to do. Nature's purpose is not necessarily to have you live a long and healthy life, but to perpetuate the instructions, the genes that tell how to perpetuate life.
Even so-called "paleolithic" diets, though undoubtedly far better than what is generally eaten today, were not necessarily designed by nature to help us live a long and healthy life but, at best, to maximize reproduction. Nature appears to not care much about what happens to us after we have had a sufficient chance to reproduce. That is why we die.
But there are clues as to how to live a long and healthy life. And that brings us once again to fat--and leptin.
It takes energy to make babies; lots of it. Energy was and always will be a coveted commodity. Nature, and evolution, hates wasting it. It makes no sense to try and make babies when it appears that there's not enough energy available to successfully accomplish that goal.
Instead, it seems that virtually all living forms can "switch gears" and direct energy away from reproduction and towards mechanism that will allow it to "hunker down" for the long haul and thus be able to reproduce at a future more nutritionally opportune time. In other words nature will then let you live longer to accomplish its primary directive of reproduction.
It does this by up regulating maintenance and repair genes that increase production of intracellular antioxidant systems, heat shock proteins (that help maintain protein shape), and DNA repair enzymes. This is what happens when you restrict calories (without starvation) in animals, and that has been shown convincingly for 70 years to greatly extend the life span of many dozens of species. Thus, there is a powerful link between reproduction, energy stores, and longevity.
Genetic studies in simple organisms have shown that that link is at least partially mediated by insulin (which in simple organisms also functions as a growth hormone), and that when insulin signals are kept low, indicating scarce energy availability, maximal lifespan can be extended--- a lot; several hundred percent in worms and flies.
Glucose is an ancient fuel used even before there was oxygen in the atmosphere, for life can burn glucose without oxygen; it is an anaerobic fuel. The use of fat as fuel came later, after life in the form of plants soaked the earth in oxygen, for you cannot burn fat without oxygen.
The primary source of energy stores in people by far is fat, as many unfortunately are all too aware of. The primary signal that indicates how much fat is stored is leptin, and it is also leptin that allows for reproduction, or not.
It has long been known that women with very little body fat, such as marathon runners, stop ovulating. There is not enough leptin being produced to permit it. Paradoxically, the first pharmaceutical use of leptin was recently approved to give to skinny women to allow them to reproduce.
Leptin’s Role in Improving Your Metabolism
Leptin also is instrumental in regulating body temperature, partly by controlling the rate of metabolism via its regulation of the thyroid.
Metabolic rate and temperature has long been connected with longevity. Almost all mechanisms that extend lifespan in many different organisms result in lower temperature. Flowers are refrigerated at the florist to extend their lifespan. Restricting calories in animals also results in lower temperature, reduced thyroid levels, and longer life.
It should be noted that reduced thyroid levels in this case are not synonymous with hypothyroidism. Here, the body is choosing to lower thyroid hormones because the increased efficiency of energy use and hormonal signaling (including perhaps thyroid) is allowing this to happen.
Anything will dissolve faster in hot water than cold water. Extra heat will dissolve, disrupt and disorganize. This is not what I try to do to make someone healthy. It is commonly advised to "increase metabolism" and increase "thermogenesis" for health and weight loss.
Yet how many of you would put a brand of gasoline in your car that advertised that it would make your engine run hotter? What would that do to the life of your car? It is not an increase in metabolism that I am after; it is improved metabolic quality.
That will be determined at the quality of your leptin signaling.
If it is poor, if you are insulin and leptin resistant, your metabolism is unhealthy and high in what I call "metabolic friction". If you then increase its rate you will likely accelerate your demise. To increase the quality of your metabolism you must be able to properly listen to insulin and especially to leptin.
If your fasting blood serum level of leptin is elevated you are likely leptin resistant and you will not be healthy unless you correct it.
How Do You Become Leptin Resistant?
This is the subject of much research. I believe people become leptin-resistant by the same general mechanism that people become insulin-resistant; by overexposure to high levels of the hormone.
High blood glucose levels cause repeated surges in insulin, and this causes one's cells to become "insulin-resistant" which leads to further high levels of insulin and diabetes. It is much the same as being in a smelly room for a period of time. Soon, you stop being able to smell it, because the signal no longer gets through.
I believe the same happens with leptin. It has been shown that as sugar gets metabolized in fat cells, fat releases surges in leptin, and I believe that those surges result in leptin-resistance just as it results in insulin-resistance.
The only known way to reestablish proper leptin (and insulin) signaling is to prevent those surges, and the only known way to do that is via diet and supplements.
As such, these can have a more profound effect on your health than any other known modality of medical treatment.
When leptin signaling is restored, your brain can finally hear the message that perhaps should have been delivered decades ago; high leptin levels can now scream to your brain that you have too much fat and that you better start burning some off for your life is in danger.
Your brain will finally allow you access into your pantry that you have been storing your fat in. Your cells will be fed the food from that fat and they will be satisfied. They will not know whether that food came from your belly fat or from your mouth; nor will they care. They will be receiving energy that they need and will not have to ask for more. You will not be hungry.
This also makes counting calories irrelevant, for the calories that you put into your mouth today are not necessarily what your cells will be eating; that will be determined primarily by leptin. Whether or not you put food into your mouth, your cells will be eating, and if they cannot eat fat they must eat sugar.
Since little sugar is stored, that sugar will be had by making you crave it, or by turning the protein in your muscle and bone into sugar. This contributes in a major way to weakness and osteoporosis. Whether or not this lean tissue wasting happens is determined by your capacity, or incapacity, to burn fat, and that is determined by your ability to listen to leptin.
A strategic diet that emphasizes good fats and avoids blood sugar spikes coupled with targeted supplements (as recommended in my Rosedale Diet and Dr. Mercola’s Take Control of Your Health), will enhance insulin and leptin sensitivity so that you can once again hear their music, allowing your life to be the symphony it was meant to be.
from Articles : Hormones, Aging https://ift.tt/3lV9cp2
via IFTTT
Mice lacking the insulin receptor substrate are more resistant to aging than normal mice, according to University College London researchers.
The finding further confirms the link between insulin signaling pathways and aging, and may have implications on aging in humans.
In the study, mice were engineered to lack either insulin receptor substrate IRS-1 or IRS-2, both proteins that are activated by the hormone insulin, which regulates glucose and fat metabolism. Compared with normal mice, the mice lacking IRS-1 had:
A 20 percent increase in their average lifespan (30 percent for female mice)
Better health as they aged
In contrast, mice lacking IRS-2 had shorter lives than normal mice, and developed signs of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Despite widespread publicity, the 2002 landmark study on the potential dangers of hormone therapy for postmenopausal women is completely unknown to most women.
New research from the Stanford University School of Medicine discovered that only 29 percent of the women surveyed knew anything about the study two years later. Additionally, only 40 percent of the women were able to identify possible risks and benefits linked to hormone therapy.
Hormone therapy is used to ease your symptoms of menopause, but has also been widely prescribed for preventive purposes, based in part on earlier observational studies that had suggested it could help protect women against heart disease, weak bones, and dementia.
In July 2002, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) abruptly ended its combination of estrogen and progestin therapy study, as their data discovered higher rates of breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots in the population taking the hormones, compared to those taking placebos.
Later, in April 2004, WHI also halted the portion of the study for estrogen-only therapy, after finding the hormone did not offer any protective heart disease prevention, but rather increased your risk of stroke and blood clots.
The WHI findings triggered enormous changes in the use of hormone therapy, and prescriptions had dropped 38 percent by 2003.
Senior author Randall Stafford, MD, PhD, said their latest survey indicates there's a huge problem in communicating crucial health information to patients effectively, which in turn is indicative of an even larger problem – ensuring that people can make informed decisions about their medical care.
Many consumers have long known their favorite lotions and sunscreens contained parabens, or synthetic chemicals used as preservatives. But with more and more products being touted as “paraben-free," many are now wondering, "What, exactly, are parabens, and are they dangerous?"
Parabens, which inhibit the growth of bacteria, yeast, and molds, have been used in personal-care products like shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, and sunscreens for years, allowing these products to survive for months, or years, during shipping and on store shelves.
Studies have now shown that parabens mimic the activity of the hormone estrogen, which is associated with certain forms of breast cancer.
The Tsimane indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon experience less brain atrophy than their American and European peers. The decrease in their brain volumes with age is 70% slower than in Western populations.
from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2SwOD7w
To help patients manage their mental wellness between appointments, researchers have developed a smart device-based electronic platform that can continuously monitor the state of hyperarousal, one of the signs of psychiatric distress. They said this advanced technology could read facial cues, analyze voice patterns and integrate readings from built-in vital signs sensors on smartwatches to determine if a patient is under stress.
from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/34i2v8y
A cross-disciplinary collaboration found that a majority of the U.S. public is supportive of soil carbon storage as a climate change mitigation strategy, particularly when that and similar approaches are seen as 'natural' strategies.
from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3vCQvu4
A new study suggests that, among men, low testosterone levels in the blood are linked to more severe COVID-19. The study contradicts widespread assumptions that higher testosterone may explain why men, on average, develop more severe COVID-19 than women do.
from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3oUglar
May 6, 2021, we received an email from Geoff Brumfiel, a senior editor and correspondent with NPR. According to NPR, “his reporting focuses on the intersection of science and national security,”1 but as soon as I read the subject line of the email — “The business of anti-vaccine propaganda” [sic] — it was clear that the line of questioning that would follow was not journalism but rather a PR piece for the pharmaceutical industry.
Indeed, Brumfiel’s email did not disappoint, nor did his resulting article, “For Some Anti-Vaccine Advocates, Misinformation Is Part of a Business.”2 True to form for NPR, the article presents a slanted view of vaccine safety advocates designed to disparage and discredit those who are speaking out against COVID propaganda.
Conveniently, Brumfiel included only one short segment from our emailed response to his questions, but neglected to mention NPR’s tight connections with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — and the hundreds of articles NPR has released that are highly favorable toward the Gates Foundation and the work it funds.3
Brumfiel’s Slanderous Allegations
Brumfiel included only a short segment of our email exchange in his NPR article, which was that I reject his “biased accusation of promoting misinformation."4 This is true, but it helps to read it in context. The entire sentence was actually, “Dr. Mercola rejects your biased accusation of promoting misinformation, please provide your direct evidence to support your slanderous allegations.” Those allegations were made in Brumfiel’s email to us, which read:
“I’m a reporter with National Public Radio who’s working on a story about the business side of the antivaccine industry. The article describes how the current pandemic has provided an opportunity for people such as Dr. Mercola. By promoting misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines, they are able to expand their reach and potentially their customer base.”
Yet, NPR’s smear piece shows what a real misinformation campaign looks like. A true journalist would not ask loaded questions with no relevance to his stated topic and no explanation as to how those questions might fit into his topic the way Brumfiel did. Those questions were:
“1. Can you provide me with any details about the size of Dr. Mercola’s businesses? And have they grown during the pandemic?
2. How does he respond to critics who say that he is using misinformation about vaccines to turn people away from conventional medicine and towards his brands and products?
3. Is he worried about being deplatformed by social media companies? Would that pose a financial challenge to him?”
Since Brumfiel did not include our response in his article, here it is for you to read in its entirety:
“Dr. Mercola owns a small business that employs 135 people in Cape Coral, Fl. The pharmaceutical industry and the propagandists that fund your organization with multi-millions are making tens of billions of dollars through this pandemic — with complete indemnification.5
NPR serves an important role in pushing the pharmaceutical agenda to promote mandatory vaccination with the help of Bill Gates’ funding. You are defending the world’s most powerful and corrupt industry, while attacking a small business that has been fighting against them and claiming concerns about the size and growth of Dr. Mercola’s business.
The pharmaceutical industry is the world’s most powerful industry, and Bill Gates is one of the world’s most powerful people.6,7,8 Standing up for what is right and defending free speech is more important than complying with any mass media campaign attacks or social media’s political agendas. Your line of questioning is not journalism, it’s just part of political bias and pharmaceutical propaganda.”
Gates Foundation Gave $17.5 Million to NPR
Mainstream media is increasingly being bought off by organizations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and as a result, the bought-and-paid-for press will only publish articles in their favor.
Writing in Columbia Journalism Review, Tim Schwab examined the recipients of nearly 20,000 Gates Foundation grants, finding more than $250 million had been given to major media companies, including BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian and the Center for Investigative Reporting.9
Ironically, “The foundation even helped fund a 2016 report10 from the American Press Institute that was used to develop guidelines11 on how newsrooms can maintain editorial independence from philanthropic funders,” Schwab writes, adding, “Gates’s generosity appears to have helped foster an increasingly friendly media environment for the world’s most visible charity.”
And Gates’ donations come with strings attached. Those given to NPR were intended to target coverage of global health and education:12
“When Gates gives money to newsrooms, it restricts how the money is used — often for topics, like global health and education, on which the foundation works — which can help elevate its agenda in the news media.
For example, in 2015 Gates gave $383,000 to the Poynter Institute, a widely-cited authority on journalism ethics … earmarking the funds ‘to improve the accuracy in worldwide media of claims related to global health and development.’ Poynter senior vice president Kelly McBride said Gates’s money was passed on to media fact-checking sites ...
Since 2000, the Gates Foundation has given NPR $17.5 million through 10 charitable grants — all of them earmarked for coverage of global health and education, specific issues on which Gates works …
Even when NPR publishes critical reporting on Gates, it can feel scripted. In February 2018, NPR ran a story headlined ‘Bill Gates Addresses ‘Tough Questions’ on Poverty and Power.’ The ‘tough questions’ NPR posed in this Q&A were mostly based on a list curated by Gates himself, which he previously answered in a letter posted to his foundation’s website.”
NPR’s Key Source Is a Digital Hate Group
Brumfiel’s primary reference for his NPR hit piece is none other than Imran Ahmed, who runs the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — a progressive U.K.-based cancel-culture leader13 with extensive ties to government and global think tanks who has labeled people questioning the COVID-19 vaccine as “threats to national security.”
Ahmed has gone on record saying he considers anti-vaxxers “an extremist group that pose a national security risk,”14 and admits tracking and spying on 425 vaccine-related Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter accounts.15 CCDH is also partnered with HealthGuard, which is NewsGuard’s health-related service.16
NewsGuard, the self-ascribed arbiter of the trustworthiness of internet websites, is another threat to the free sharing of information. It claims to rate information as reliable or fake news, supplying you with a color-coded rating system next to Google and Bing searches, as well as on articles displayed on social media.
But NewsGuard is in itself fraught with conflicts of interest, as it’s largely funded by Publicis, a global communications giant that’s partnered with Big Pharma. NewsGuard previously classified Mercola.com as fake news because we reported the SARS-CoV-2 virus as potentially having been leaked from the biosafety level 4 (BSL4) laboratory in Wuhan City, China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Since then, several members of the U.S. Congress have vowed to launch their own investigation to explore the lab accident theory.17
Publicis appears to be playing an important role in the global censorship of information relating to COVID-19, and Publicis Health admitted its involvement in this agenda in an April 2021 tweet, in which the they announced its partnership with NewsGuard, “to fight the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines.”18
Publicis Health is dedicated to suppressing any information that hurts its Big Pharma clients, which include Lilly, Abbot, Roche, Amgen, Genentech, Celgene, Gilead, Biogen, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer, just to name a few. They’re now being sued by the Massachusetts attorney general for their role in creating Purdue’s deceptive marketing for OxyContin, which is described as the “crime of the century.”
NPR Spreads CCDH’s Hit List
The CCDH published a hit-list of 12 groups and individuals it wants Big Tech to bury, deplatform and ban for disseminating COVID-19 information that runs counter to status quo propaganda. NPR jumped right on the bandwagon in spreading this misinformation, with an article titled, “Just 12 People Are Behind Most Vaccine Hoaxes on Social Media, Research Shows.”19
Not surprisingly, Mercola.com is on that list, and a ramp-up of personal threats that cannot be defended against in a court of law recently forced me to delete many of the articles discussing alternative treatments for COVID-19 from my website. That article — ironically part of NPR’s special series on “untangling disinformation” — is in itself fraught with misinformation, most of it again being spread by one individual — Ahmed — and CCDH.
NPR praises Facebook for blatant censorship, with statements such as, “Facebook said it now limits the reach of posts that could discourage people from getting vaccinated, even if the messages don't explicitly break its rules. But the cat-and-mouse game continues.”20 Then if you scroll to the bottom, you’ll see the editor’s note: “Facebook is among NPR's financial supporters.”21
Media Is Getting Away With Blatant Lies
Digital dictatorship is escalating, and people are increasingly being conditioned to think it’s not only necessary for “misinformation” to be removed but that it’s the obligation of these essential information carriers to do so. Mercola.com is on the hit list and, as I already said, a ramp-up of personal threats that cannot be defended against in a court of law recently forced me to delete many of the articles discussing alternative treatments for COVID-19 from my website.
Censorship extremists have called this a victory, but it’s nothing of the sort. For instance, Coda Story published a false article May 7, 2021, claiming that “pressure from lawmakers and antidiscrimination groups” prompted me to remove COVID-19 content from Mercola.com, in order to “avoid social media ban.”22
The article quotes Ahmed (notice a pattern?) who states, “Joseph Mercola is a superspreader of anti-vaccine and COVID disinformation. The fact that he has said he will self-censor shows the impact of penalizing anti-vaccine propagandists.”23
I actually stopped maintaining an active Facebook page voluntarily in August 2019 due to the company’s habit of subverting users' privacy. The idea that I am now self-censoring due to some form of unnamed penalty or to “avoid social media ban” is quite a stretch, and makes it clear that Ahmed did not read the article I published explaining my reasoning for removing select content.
It was also implied that I’m part of an “anti-science movement” — another lie that’s easily “fact-checked,” considering one of the driving forces behind Mercola.com is to share science-backed health information — including the science that not everyone wants you to hear.
It’s time to get the word out that if you want to see what a real misinformation campaign looks like, you need look no further than the mainstream media and social media, which are actively trying to restrict your access to the truth from websites like mine.
As reported in several previous articles, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — a division of the National Institute of Health (NIH) headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci since 1984 — has, for years, provided grants to the EcoHealth Alliance and others to conduct gain-of-function (GoF) research on coronaviruses.
EcoHealth Alliance, in turn, farmed out some of this research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), from whence SARS-CoV-2 appears to have emerged. In a May 11, 2021, Senate hearing, Sen. Rand Paul questioned Fauci on the NIAID’s funding of GoF research on bat coronaviruses, some of which was conducted at the WIV.
Fauci denied the charge, saying “The NIH has not ever, and does not now, fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute.”1 It’s a curious denial, considering the NIH’s funding of such research has been thoroughly documented and can be easily double-checked.
When Paul asks Fauci if the NIAID funded Dr. Ralph Baric’s GoF research, Fauci claims Baric “does not do gain-of-function research, and if it is, it is according to the guidelines and is being conducted in North Carolina.” Paul shoots back, saying:
“You don’t think him turning a bat virus spike protein, that he got from the Wuhan Institute into the SARS virus, is gain-of-function? You’d be in a minority, because at least 200 scientists have signed a statement from the Cambridge Working Group that it is gain-of-function.”
In the video above, Jimmy Dore reviews the apparent lies dished out by Fauci during the Senate hearing. In the Truth in Media report below, investigative journalist Ben Swann lays out some of the proof, showing Fauci’s dishonesty.
“What’s insane about this exchange is that Fauci is clearly and provably lying … to Congress, which is a crime … and he’s lying to the American public,” Swann says.
NIH/NIAID Has Funded Gain-of-Function Research
As reported by Swann, the NIH/NIAID has funded GoF research to the tune of at least $41.7 million. Up until 2014, this research was conducted by Baric at the University of North Carolina (UNC). In 2014, the U.S. government issued a moratorium on federal gain-of-function research funding due to safety, ethical and moral concerns raised within the scientific community.
It was at this point, in 2014, that funding for GoF research started being funneled through the EcoHealth Alliance to the WIV. Swann reviews documents proving Fauci lied to Congress, including a paper2 titled “SARS-Like WIV1-CoV Poised for Human Emergence,” submitted to PNAS in 2015 and subsequently published in 2016. In this paper, the authors state that:
“Overall, the results from these studies highlight the utility of a platform that leverages metagenomics findings and reverse genetics to identify prepandemic threats.
For SARS-like WIV1-CoV, the data can inform surveillance programs, improve diagnostic reagents, and facilitate effective treatments to mitigate future emergence events. However, building new and chimeric reagents must be carefully weighed against potential gain-of-function (GoF) concerns.”
At the end of that paper, the authors thank “Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology for access to bat CoV sequences and plasmid of WIV1-CoV spike protein.” They also specify that the research was supported by the NIAID under the grant awards U19AI109761 and U19AI107810, which together total $41.7 million.
As noted by Swann, this paper clearly spells out that the NIAID spent $41.7 million on GoF research, with the aim of determining how bat coronaviruses can be made more pathogenic to humans, and that this research continued after the 2014 moratorium on such funding was implemented.
NIAID Viewed Baric’s Research as GoF
What’s more, a letter3,4 from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to the director of proposals at UNC Chapel Hill, discussing grant U19AI107810, also spells this out in black and white. The October 21, 2014, letter states, in part:
“NIAID has determined that the above referenced grant may include Gain of Function (GoF) research that is subject to the recently-announced U.S. Government funding pause … The following specific aims appear to involve research covered under the pause: Project 1: Role of Uncharacterized Genes in High Pathogenic Human Coronavirus Infect — Ralph S. Baric, PhD — Project Leader.
Specific Aim 1. Novel Functions in virus replication in vitro. Specific Aim 3. Novel functions in virus pathogenesis in vivo … As your grant is currently funded, this pause is voluntary.”
In other words, the NIAID authorized the continuation of what it admitted was gain-of-function research — simply because the grant had already been funded — and it did so after the ban on such funding was put into place.
But that’s not all. After the moratorium was lifted in 2017, a special review board, the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight (the P3CO Review Framework), was created within the DHHS to evaluate whether grants involving dangerous pathogens are worth the risks. The review board is also responsible for ensuring proper safeguards are in place for approved research.5
According to Rutgers University professor Richard Ebright, an NIH grant for research involving the modification of bat coronaviruses at the WIV was sneaked through because the NIAID didn’t flag it for review.6 In other words, the WIV received federal funding from the NIAID without the research first receiving a green-light from the HHS review board.
The NIAID apparently used a convenient loophole in the review framework. As it turns out, it’s the funding agency’s responsibility to flag potential gain-of-function research for review. If it doesn’t, the review board has no knowledge of it.
According to Ebright, the NIAID and NIH have “systemically thwarted — indeed systematically nullified — the HHS P3CO Framework by declining to flag and forward proposals for review.”7
NIAID Is Also Committed to Continued GoF Research
Lastly, Fauci is also clearly committed to continuing GoF research, seeing how the NIAID, back in August 2020, announced a five-year, $82-million investment in a new global network of Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases.8
Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance will receive $7.5 million9 from this grant, and planned research will include GoF-type experiments that the NIAID says10 will "determine what genetic or other changes make [animal] pathogens capable of infecting humans."
All of that basically serves as backstory to the latest development. It’s now been discovered that the WIV quietly deleted all mentions of its collaboration with Fauci’s NIAID, the NIH and other American research partners from its website shortly after Fauci testified in a Senate hearing in March 2021,11 when he went head to head with Sen. Rand Paul on mask-wearing. As reported May 15, 2021, by The National Pulse:12
“March 21st, 2021, the lab’s website listed six U.S.-based research partners: University of Alabama, University of North Texas, EcoHealth Alliance, Harvard University, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the United States, and the National Wildlife Federation.13
One day later, the page was revised to contain just two research partners — EcoHealth Alliance and the University of Alabama.14 By March 23rd, EcoHealth Alliance was the sole partner remaining.15
EcoHealth Alliance is run by long-standing Chinese Communist Party-partner Dr. Peter Daszak, who National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam has repeatedly claimed will be the first ‘fall guy’ of the Wuhan lab debacle …
Beyond establishing a working relationship between the NIH and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, now-deleted posts16 from the site also detail studies bearing the hallmarks of gain-of-function research conducted with the Wuhan-based lab.”
Altered WIV Page Admits GoF Research With American Partners
Indeed, a now-deleted WIV web page titled “Will SARS Come Back?” stated that:17
“Prof. Zhengli Shi and Xingyi Ge from WIV, in cooperation with researchers from University of North Carolina, Harvard Medical School, Bellinzona Institute of Microbiology … examine the disease potential of a SARS-like virus, SHC014-CoV, which is currently circulating in Chinese horseshoe bat populations.
Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, the scientists generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone.
The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV.
Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein.
On the basis of these findings, they synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo …”
Again, while Fauci insists Baric is “not doing any kind of GoF research,” and “if he is,” then he’s doing it at UNC and not in China, the WIV’s web page clearly refutes this. GoF research was done at the WIV, in partnership with UNC researchers, of which Baric is a leading one.
The WIV’s deletions of American research partners from its website (with the exception of EcoHealth Alliance), and its deletion of the article discussing genetic research on the SARS virus raise a host of questions and appears to be yet another attempt at a cover-up. The surprising thing is that they’re now covering up American involvement and not just their own.
Chinese-American GoF Research Example
The WIV and the Wuhan University School of Public Health are both listed as subcontractors for EcoHealth Alliance under a $3.7-million NIH grant titled, "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence."18
The two institutions also worked as collaborators under another $2.6-million grant to research the "Risk of Viral Emergence from Bats,"19 and under EcoHealth Alliance's largest single source of funding, a $44.2 million sub-grant from the University of California at Davis for the PREDICT project (2015-2020).20
Part of the PREDICT grant went to funding GoF experiments by WIV scientist Zhengli and Baric with the UNC.21,22,23 In this experiment, Zhengli and Baric used genetic engineering and synthetic biology to create a "new bat SARS-like virus … that can jump directly from its bat hosts to humans." A request by Zhengli and Baric to continue their research during the moratorium on GoF was approved by the NIH. Daszak described Zhengli and Baric’s work in a 2019 interview:24
"You can manipulate them [coronaviruses] in the lab pretty easily. Spike protein drives a lot of what happens with the coronavirus, zoonotic risk. So, you can get the sequence, you can build the protein, and we work with Ralph Baric at UNC to do this. Insert it into a backbone of another virus, and do some work in the lab."
The research was published in the journal Nature in 2015.25,26 As a condition of publication, Nature, like most scientific journals, requires27 authors to submit novel DNA and RNA sequences to GenBank, the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information Database. Curiously, the new SARS-like virus Zhengli and Baric published in 2015 wasn't deposited in GenBank until May 2020.28
Fauci Has Accomplished Great Deal of Harm
It remains to be seen whether Daszak is in fact being groomed as the fall guy in this saga. Clearly, he’s innocent in the lab origin cover-up. He somehow ended up on two separate commissions charged with investigating the origin of SARS-CoV-2 — one by the WHO29 and one by The Lancet30 — having already played a central role in the plot to obscure the lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 by crafting a scientific statement condemning such inquiries as “conspiracy theory.”31,32
Letting Fauci off the hook is not an option, however. Like Daszak, Fauci has spent the last year denouncing the possibility that COVID-19 could be the result of a lab leak,33 all while knowing the kinds of research his agency funded there.34
He’s been a longtime defender and promoter of GoF research on animal viruses in general, saying while he was working on GoF with bird-flu viruses such research is worth the risk because it allows scientists to prepare for pandemics.35 However, this kind of research clearly has not improved governments’ pandemic responses one whit.
Fauci has also flip-flopped endlessly when it comes to mask recommendations, and helped suppress one of the most effective, safest and least expensive COVID-19 remedies, hydroxychloroquine, despite his knowledge of a 2005 study showing it’s an effective remedy against SARS coronavirus.36,37
The study was published in Virology Journal, which is the official publication of the NIH, so it’s hard to believe he was unaware of it. But rather than protect public health and save lives using hydroxychloroquine, Fauci promoted the ineffective, dangerous and expensive drug remdesivir and COVID-19 gene therapies instead.
Fauci also knew (and has admitted) that using a PCR test with a cycle threshold (CT) above 35 renders it useless because at that point, you’re just detecting dead nucleotides. No live virus can be detected at CTs that high.38 As early as March 2020, he knew up to 90% of positive PCR tests were false positives and that these people really weren’t sick,39 yet he said and did nothing.
According to Fauci, deaths from the vaccines have to be “put into context with the population they occurred in.”40 What he’s referring to are cases where old people died shortly after receiving their COVID shots. Old people die, so therefore you shouldn’t blame it on the vaccine.
This is hypocrisy at its finest. When seniors die before vaccination, it’s due to COVID-19 and something must be done to prevent it, but when they die after vaccination, they die of natural causes and no preventive action is necessary. Fauci’s dismissal of vaccine deaths also overlooks the fact that many young, healthy people have reported serious adverse reactions or even died within hours or days of their vaccinations.41
Gain-of-Function Research Is the Real Threat
I believe GoF research cooperation and sharing between nations is such that blame will ultimately be shared by multiple parties. The key issue, really, if SARS-CoV-2 did in fact come from a lab, is how do we prevent another lab escape? And, if it turns out to have been a genetically manipulated virus, do we allow gain-of-function research to continue?
I believe the answer is to ban research that involves making pathogens more lethal to humans. As it stands, the same establishment that is drumming up panic by warning of the emergence of new, more infectious and dangerous variants is also busy creating them. They just never tell you about that part.
Already, scientists have figured out a way to mutate SARS-CoV-2 such that it evades human antibodies. Were this mutated virus to ever get out, we’d be in serious trouble. While mankind has created several outbreaks, nature seems to have a way of NOT mutating animal viruses into global killers. So, the hypocrisy needs to end.
World leaders need to realize that funding and defending gain-of-function research is the real threat here. I believe Fauci’s lies are a pathetic attempt to hide his agency’s involvement with GoF research that may have resulted in a global crisis.
During 2020, many people learned more about coronaviruses, and specifically the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Pictures of the spiked virus have been plastered across the news media.
The image is reminiscent of a chain mace, or flail. This was a medieval weapon with a spiked steel ball at the end of a chain or leather strap. The image may be frightening. It turns out researchers believe the spikes are responsible for significant vascular damage leading to severe disease.1
Most people will be infected at least one time in their lives by some type of coronavirus. If the COVID-19 pandemic is the first time you've heard about coronaviruses, you should know the first one was discovered in chickens in 1930.2 A few decades later the first human coronavirus was identified.3
Currently, scientists have identified four types of coronaviruses that are endemic and can cause up to 15% of common colds.4 Interestingly, if all coronaviruses have originated in the wild, the rate at which the virus is mutating has accelerated dramatically in 20 years.
In the last two decades, three new coronaviruses have emerged: SARS in November 2002;5 MERS in September 2012;6 and SARS-CoV-2 in December 2019.7 The symptoms of COVID-19 from an infection with SARS-CoV-2 can vary to a great extent.
Some people carrying the virus have had no symptoms. Others report fever, headache, body aches, dry cough, loss of appetite and loss of smell.8 In others, more severe symptoms can develop that affect the respiratory tract and lead to pneumonia.
Approximately 36% of individuals have experienced gastrointestinal symptoms or neurological symptoms, either with or without respiratory symptoms.9 A recent paper published in Circulation Research10 revealed it is the spiked proteins on the virus that play a key role in your symptoms.
Spiked SARS-CoV-2 Damages More Than Your Lungs
A team of researchers including scientists from the University of California San Diego evaluated the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in animals. The researchers were not surprised by the clinical findings, but the data revealed a detailed explanation of how the spike (S) protein triggers damage to the vascular system.11
The researchers created a pseudo virus, or cell surrounded by the spike proteins that did not contain a virus.12 Using an animal model, the researchers administered the pseudo virus into the lungs and found the virus was not necessary to create damage. Instead, the spike protein was enough to cause inflammation.
The experiment was then replicated in the lab using cell cultures. The team exposed healthy endothelial cells that line your arteries to the spiked pseudo virus. Past studies had demonstrated that exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus elicited damage to the cells by binding to angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2).
However, the team found the cells responded in a similar way when exposed to the pseudo virus. When the S protein attached to the ACE2 receptor it disrupted signaling to the mitochondria and caused damage and fragmentation. The alterations in mitochondrial function were confirmed as part of the inhibition of ACE2 signaling in the lab.
The results also revealed that the virus could induce endothelial cell inflammation and endotheliitis. The protein reportedly decreased ACE2 levels and impaired nitric oxide bioavailability.13 Co-senior author of the study, Uri Manor, explained in a press release from Salk Institute:14
"If you remove the replicating capabilities of the virus, it still has a major damaging effect on the vascular cells, simply by virtue of its ability to bind to this ACE2 receptor, the S protein receptor, now famous thanks to COVID. Further studies with mutant spike proteins will also provide new insight towards the infectivity and severity of mutant SARS-CoV-2 viruses."
Long Haul Symptoms May Be Related to Vascular Damage
Some of the symptoms from COVID-19 that last weeks or months for some people may be the result of vascular damage. People who have had these symptoms have been given the name "long haulers."15
In theory, they have recovered from the worst symptoms of the illness and test negative. Yet, they continue to have symptoms without an active infection. According to a paper in JAMA,16 approximately 10% of people who have had COVID-19 may experience long haul symptoms.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention17 report that a combination of the following symptoms without an active COVID infection can appear weeks after the infection and last for months. Symptoms may worsen after physical or mental activity.
Brain fog described as difficulty thinking or concentrating
Chest pain
Cough and difficulty breathing
Depression or anxiety
Dizziness when first standing
Fast beating heart or pounding heart
Fatigue
Fever
Headache
Joint or muscle pain
Loss of smell or taste
Shortness of breath
The predominant pathophysiology of COVID-19 includes endothelial damage and microvascular injury, stimulation of hyperinflammation and hypercoagulability.18 A recent review in Physiological Reports19 examined how the capillary damage and inflammation from endotheliitis triggered by COVID-19 could contribute to the persistent symptoms by interfering with tissue oxygenation.
The combined effects of capillary damage in multiple key organs may accelerate hypoxia related inflammation and lead to long haul symptoms. Although exercise temporarily worsens long haul symptoms and some have rejected high-intensity interval training (HIIT) as an option, one paper published in Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine from Denmark suggests the opposite.20
The authors of this study argue that the pathophysiology of COVID-19 may be overcome by the physiological effects of HIIT and it should be considered as one of the rehabilitation choices to potentially reverse these symptoms. They propose that exercise could increase viral clearance and modulate TNF-alpha and interleukin-1 beta signaling.
This may in turn reduce vascular inflammation. They acknowledge that HIIT is the most controversial type of exercise intervention to be prescribed after COVID-19, due to the risk of sudden cardiac arrest secondary to cardiovascular damage.
Several experts21,22 recommend even those accustomed to high intensity exercise should first complete a cardiovascular exam and approach their return to physical activity gradually. They cite a small retrospective study of 28 people with a history of COVID-19 in which the researchers concluded that "comprehensive cardiopulmonary rehabilitation after COVID-19 is safe, feasible, and effective."23
Early Treatment May Reduce the Number of Long Haulers
In my interview with Dr. Vladimir Zelenko in March 2021, we discussed the treatment of COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine. At that point, Zelenko had treated 3,000 patients with symptoms of COVID-19 and only three of his high-risk patients had subsequently succumbed to the disease.
While the focus of the interview was on treatment protocols and the use of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, Zelenko shared an interesting statistic about his protocol. In the early months of COVID-19, Zelenko decided to treat his high-risk patients as early as possible, without waiting for severe symptoms. This turned out to be one key to his significant success.
Without waiting for test results that often took five days, by which time high-risk patients were exhibiting more severe symptoms, he started treatment immediately. His understanding of the mechanism behind hydroxychloroquine and zinc led to using the combination alongside azithromycin, to prevent bacterial pneumonia and other bacterial infections common with COVID.
What is interesting are the statistics for Zelenko's patients with long haul symptoms. As I've discussed, approximately 10% of the population that is infected with COVID-19 will go on to experience persistent symptoms.24 However, Zelenko has treated 3,000 patients and none who received treatment within the first five days went on to develop long-haul symptoms.
While he has had patients with persistent symptoms from COVID-19, they sought medical care after the first five days of symptoms, which meant the inflammatory process had advanced. From his experience, and the experience of the patients he treated, early intervention with the protocol nearly eliminated the risk of persistent symptoms.
Researchers Find Another Vaccine Target
During vaccine development, researchers and pharmaceutical companies have focused on the spike protein that surrounds the virus. It appears that this is how the virus enters the cells and it seemed reasonable if the virus could not replicate inside the cells, the infection could be stopped.
However, as has been discovered, the virus has more than just a single spike protein.25 There are four proteins that form the structure surrounding the RNA. There is an envelope (E), a membrane (M) and a nucleocapsid (N), in addition to the spike (S). Your immune system recognizes all four of these proteins. Researchers have discovered humans make more antibodies to the N protein than the S protein.26
However, it seemed counterintuitive to address the N protein since this is found inside the structure with the viral RNA. Therefore, any antibodies your body makes against the N protein will not block the virus from entering the cells.27 New information has revealed that once the N protein antibodies get inside the cell they are recognized by an antibiotic receptor, TRIM21.
This antibody receptor shreds the N protein, which then reaches the surface of an infected cell. Your body's T cells recognize the fragments and kill the cell along with any virus. This has suggested to researchers that inducing N protein antibodies may be another way of stimulating the immune response against SARS-CoV-2.
Another benefit of focusing on the N protein is that it has a lower mutation rate.28 In other words, as the virus mutates in the wild the current vaccine may no longer have any effectiveness against it, in much the same way that the flu vaccine must be altered each year to address influenza variants. The sequence in the N protein is more stable, so researchers postulate that a vaccine may be effective for a longer period.
List of Current Vaccine Side Effects Is Growing
Early in May 2021, reports from France indicated five cases of myocarditis were found in those who had taken the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle that can have lifelong effects as it weakens the muscle and creates scar tissue.29
The national medicines safety agency (ANSM) released their weekly vaccine update, saying "five cases have been declared in France."30 The agency didn't feel there was enough information to conclude the vaccine had played a role but would continue to monitor reports.
Over 13.5 million doses of COVID vaccines have been administered in France since April 22, 2021. The ANSM reports 16,030 adverse events from those who had been vaccinated. Israel has also reported several cases of myocarditis after people receive their second dose.
A review of the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) shows 12 reports of myocarditis were recorded in the U.S. by April 30, 2021. According to Our World in Data,31 by April 30, 2021, 30.32% of the population in the U.S. had been fully vaccinated. VAERS also showed there were 157,277 adverse events reported by April 30, 2021.32
These numbers are likely far lower than the actual number of people who have experienced adverse events from the vaccines. Research data33 show health care providers identify and report vaccine adverse events in woefully low numbers. In fact, the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine was recently paused to teach doctors how to report vaccine injuries.34 The pause has since been lifted in the U.S.
It is crucial to report a vaccine injury or side effect to VAERS, as the data are essential in helping individuals, doctors and researchers make informed decisions. You can make your own report online or using a PDF by going to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.35 You'll find more information about adverse events and how vaccines affect your health at the National Vaccine Information Center.36
The White House is pouring taxpayer money into free advertising for a booming and liability-free vaccine industry,1 which doesn’t seem quite right. Since the beginning of human existence, greed has played a central role in the corruption of man.
The phrase “follow the money” was popularized in the film, “All the President's Men,” a docudrama about the break-in at the Watergate office building and the subsequent political scandal that ultimately brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon.2
The movie, based on the nonfiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, suggests that by following the money, political corruption will be exposed. In the past 18 months, there’s been so much money promised, allocated, provided and spent in relation to the COVID pandemic that it’s difficult to tease out the origins.
The amounts of money reported in the news or announced by government agencies are so large it’s easy to believe the pot of money is endless. Yet, that pot of money is funded through your tax dollars, and those tax dollars have plummeted in the last 18 months as more and more businesses closed, shutting more and more people out of a paycheck.
In comparison, in 2008, one of the worst recessions in recent history, the average unemployment rate was 5.8%.3 But in 2020 the jobless rate rose to a record high of 14.7%4 and one year later is still above the 2008 recession rate, averaging 6.1% in April 2021.5 As a comparison, the average unemployment rate before the pandemic, in 2018, was 3.9%.6
Although these seem like small percentage differences, they represent large numbers of people and sums of money that were not being paid in taxes. For example, 5.8% of the population in 2008 (304.09 million people7) was 17.6 million people not working and contributing to the tax pool; 6.1% of the population in 2020 was 20.17 million people. In 2018, the average tax bill in the U.S. was $15,322,8 which means if you do the math, the U.S. was short $309 billion in tax money in 2020.
$3 Billion in Free Advertising Goes to Big Pharma
In January 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services9 announced $22 billion to support expanded testing and vaccine distribution. In March 2021, the White House announced10 they would spend another $10 billion to expand access to vaccines and “build confidence” in them in designated areas.
Twelve days later, April 6, 2021, the CDC announced11 they would again dip into taxpayer money through Washington’s Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act to spend $3 billion to support an “ad campaign to combat vaccine hesitancy.”12
In the CDC announcement they said the money would fund “innovative partnerships with community-based organizations to increase vaccine uptake.”13 This begs the question, hasn’t there been enough free publicity in the news and on television about the pandemic and the “need” for vaccination to return to “normal”?14,15
The advertisements were played on network TV and cable throughout April 2021 in English and Spanish in the hope they would reduce vaccine hesitancy as “skepticism about the vaccines also remains high.”16 Yet, as the National Vaccine Information Center points out, you only have to turn on the evening news on any major television network in the U.S. to see one long COVID vaccine commercial.
As Jeffrey Zients, White House COVID-19 response coordinator, commented in a press briefing about the $3 billion being used to bolster information about the COVID vaccine in communities, "Building vaccine confidence and increasing access to vaccination is central to our efforts.”17
At the beginning of the pandemic, major drug companies were funded with taxpayer dollars to develop COVID vaccines to the tune of over $9 billion.18 They were then handed a liability shield,19 which ensured if the product did not work or a person were hurt by using it, the company was shielded from any lawsuits.
In other words, the vaccine industry was given billions of dollars to develop a vaccine, then shielded from any liability if their vaccines didn't work or if they hurt people. Next, the government poured billions more taxpayer dollars into advertising those vaccines and spreading information that might help people to decide to get the vaccines.
It is important to note that the government is providing the vaccine free of charge to you regardless of your health insurance status.20 FiercePharma21 reported in February 2021 that the cost to the government per dose for COVID-19 vaccines was:
$19.50 Pfizer
$16.00 Novavax
$15.00 Moderna
$10 Johnson & Johnson
$4 AstraZeneca
So, added to the billions already given to the vaccine companies to develop the vaccine, free advertising for their product through the news media and billions poured into increasing access to their product — plus additional paid ad campaigns — all paid for by the government, vaccine companies are now charging the government for each individual dose they deliver. This may make the COVID-19 vaccine the best return on investment for drug development and sale in history.
Department Launches Grassroots Campaign
But the amount of money, time and effort being poured into vaccinating as many people as possible in the shortest time possible doesn’t stop there. In early April 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services22 launched a grassroots ad campaign for the COVID vaccine industry called the COVID-19 Community Corps.
This is a group of leaders within communities that “people know and trust,”23 whose goal is to encourage Americans to get vaccinated. The group was invited to:24
“… receive timely, accurate information to share with your family, friends, and neighbors. By encouraging them to get vaccinated, you’ll help protect them – and allow all of us to safely gather together again.”
The New York Times25 reported that 275 organizations had signed up for the COVID-19 Community Corps by mid-May 2021, including the Catholic Health Association, the North American Meat Institute and NASCAR.
It's expected that many of the Catholic and evangelical groups will work at a community level to address the concerns surrounding the use of abortion-derived fetal cell lines in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
While some have tried to debunk this concern using general terms, the answer lies in the technicalities of how the cell lines have been used, as detailed in ”Several COVID-19 Vaccines Are Made Using Aborted Fetal Cells.” The general terms that self-declared fact-checkers like to use when rating something false or misleading is in fact, false and misleading.
There have been cell lines commonly used in vaccine development that originated from aborted fetuses.26 Several vaccine makers used at least one of these cell lines in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, including Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
One argument for using fetal cell lines during the production of vaccines is the claim that the cells are clones of the original. This is like saying your 20-year-old or 40-year-old body is no longer your body since all the cells are copies of those when you were a baby.
They are, in essence, a clone of the original. However, there is virtually no difference between cells that grow and multiply in a petri dish and those that grow and multiply in your body during your lifetime. If the cells in your body are still you, then the cells in the petri dish are still those of the original aborted fetus.
Agencies Soft Pedal Reasons for ‘Vaccine Hesitancy’
The government agency reasons given for the slowdown in vaccinations, which threatens to create a situation where supply exceeds demand for the vaccine, are superficial. The New York Times quotes Shirley Bloomfield, chief executive of NTCA — The Rural Broadband Association as saying:27
“I’ve got some pockets where they cite religious reasons with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. There are a lot of pockets where people have already had Covid and a sense of, ‘Well, we’ve all already gotten it, so we’re not really pressed.’”
In early May 2021, the White House announced that 100 million people in the U.S. were fully vaccinated.28 According to a reporter from The Hill, “Authorities need to dispel the legitimate concerns that make people hesitant, while also stopping waves of misinformation.”29 How do you dispel concerns that are legitimate without using your own misinformation?
The news media appears to classify those who are vaccine hesitant based on their political affiliation, continuing to cite Trump supporters as those who might want to create chaos around vaccinations. Yet, according to a recent poll reported in The Hill,30 only 30% of Republicans said they would not get the vaccine, and only 35% of the U.S. is fully vaccinated.31
As the number who are willing to get jabbed by a genetic experiment begins to wane, it's difficult to justify how vaccine hesitancy can fall along political lines. To put this another way, 40% of the U.S. population now identifies as Republican,32 and 30% of those said they would not get the vaccine. If politics were a significant factor for vaccine hesitancy, then only 12% of the U.S. population would not be willing to be vaccinated.
Some of the reasons being cited for an unwillingness to take an experimental vaccine include some of the side effects without talking about the side effects, potential safety without describing why there may be safety issues and a belief that COVID-19 isn’t a problem. In each case, the reasons for hesitating are downplayed and countered.
Who Has More Medical Knowledge — Joe Rogan or Bill Gates?
In a slightly comedic turn of events, Dr. Anthony Fauci and White House communications director Kate Bedingfield questioned radio blogger Joe Rogan’s medical knowledge after he made comments in his popular podcast that young people likely didn’t need to be vaccinated, which he possibly based on these facts:
The CDC states:33 “Children and adolescents have had lower incidence and fewer severe COVID-19 outcomes than adults; 2.5% were hospitalized, 0.8% required ICU admission, and <0.1% died.”
The vaccine may not prevent you from getting COVID-19 but reduces your symptoms.34
Researchers are not sure if you can spread COVID-19 after vaccination.35
This means young people are not at significant risk for severe disease and death. Since the vaccine may not prevent a mild to moderate illness in this age group and the vaccine may not prevent transmission, Rogan’s statement doesn’t seem like misinformation. Yet, Bedingfield told CNN:36
“Did Joe Rogan become a medical doctor while we weren’t looking? I’m not sure that taking scientific and medical advice from Joe Rogan is perhaps the most productive way for people to get their information.”
The same question could be asked of Bill or Melinda Gates. Did either of them become doctors when we weren't looking? Yet, Gates:
Is called the “world’s most powerful doctor” in reference to his influence over the World Health Organization,37 years before the COVID-19 pandemic
Hosted Event 201 with the World Economic Forum in October 2019,38 which was a highly predictive novel coronavirus pandemic exercise of the events that transpired over the coming 12 months
Set up,39 and influences the actions of,40 GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, with a grant of $750 million to start and a subsequent infusion of $50 million in 2020; GAVI claims they are a key partner in shaping the vaccine market across the world
Government officials are crying out over the dissemination of “misinformation” surrounding COVID-19 and the vaccine, all while demonizing those who have the audacity to use their First Amendment rights to free speech. Public health experts, while being allowed their own opinions, said Rogan's comments could perpetuate vaccine hesitancy.41 But they didn’t stop there.
Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, told Rogan, “You have a responsibility as an adult, you have a responsibility as a community leader, your responsibility as a communicator to get it right.”42 He later went on to talk about developing trusted COVID messengers, saying:43
“I just think they have to speak the facts. You speak the facts, and anytime you discover the facts that are incorrect, you try to correct them. And ... I don't think you demonize the individual, nor do I think you try to pin motive to it, because you don't know what the motive is.”
In other words, he implied that Rogan was acting like a child and an irresponsible community leader, but those who are “sent” as community messengers must not be derided or demeaned since “you don’t know what the motive is.” In other words, the objective is to “try to correct” the information.
These are the insidious ways that anyone with an opposing opinion who does not align with the desired rhetoric is discredited. It’s an effective technique that uses a deep understanding of psychology to sway your beliefs and your opinions. It is vital at this time in history to read the information and make up your own mind.
While it may be easier to listen to the “experts,” many don’t have your individual best interest in mind and are likely leading people down a primrose path to a future they design and control. Consider the information shared in the following articles and decide for yourself.
Breast cancer rates dropped by half in tandem with the discontinuation of hormone replacement therapy, according to a study published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study was reported in the Telegraph in the United Kingdom.
It is amazing how the little twists and turns of researchers can have such a profound impact on what we generally come to realize as “scientific truth.” Let me share a recent fascinating example of how this impacted one of the most powerful hormones in your body.
